I want to get rid of a bad tenant that owes a lot of back rent (COVID days) plus not paying in general,..waiting for eviction .

So she wants us to accept RAFT to pay some of her past arrears, but she is so bad we want her out using for non payment.

I'm mildly curious.... what else would rent money be for other than "use & occupancy?"

You occupy a rental and presumably that is using it... what am I missing about this odd state of affairs?

Depends on the judge. I know in my small RURBAN area, the judge will make you take any funds just to keep them there.

6x6

"That's been over 4 years" Not sure what that means,..

Mapleleaf:

"Depends on the judge. I know in my small RURBAN area, the judge will make you take any funds just to keep them there.

Would be a shame if suddenly snakes showed up at the unit."

Increadible! So you only own your property on paper,.about the snakes, she would just call the BOH. (she has done this in the past for things she has caused or broken)

In MA if you issue a 14 notice to quit for non payment of rent depending upon whether it's a mtm or a term tenancy, the tenant has the right to cure by paying all monies due before the 14 days are up. If they don't pay the entire amount due, within 10 days you can follow through summoning them to court so long as you've given them a receipt stating that the money is being accepted for use & occupancy only. If they are a MTM tenant, they have the right to cure only once in a 12 month period. If they are a term tenant, then they could cure it every month.

FYI there are actually 2 different 14 day notice that you need to use. One is only for MTM tenancies & the other is for term tenancies. Each one has slightly different wording & if you use the wrong one you more than likely will have to start the whole non payment eviction process over again.

You can read more about it here: ://www.mass.gov/guides/landlords-guide-to-evictions

Steve…thank you for that, as always.

Ken said: "at the right price i would buy it, i like fighting with tenants like this"

This is not fighting the tenants, it is fighting the darn guvmint. And much as Robert J loves fighting the guvmint, I prefer not getting into p!ssing contests that I can't win. So, Ken, I won't bid against you on this one!

Eviction resources and obligations for landlords

What you need to know if you plan to evict a tenant

Chapter 151B of the Massachusetts General Laws prohibits you from discriminating against a tenant because they receive federal, state, or local housing rental assistance. Get advice from your lawyer before declining rental assistance.

You cannot evict tenants who have a pending RAFT application for nonpayment of rent.

After receiving a RAFT award, you can still file for eviction if your tenant violates the lease for a reason other than rent issues, or if they don’t pay the portion of rent they agreed to. You do not have to agree to forgive back rent or accept reduced rent.

Notice to Quit Requirements for Landlords

The above was taken directly from a MA government site. For more info go here.

Yes, during the dry run, err I mean "C0v1d" they stated that if you received emergency rent funds (a total farce) from the state, you could not evict. I had one tenant that left owing me about $2K. She wanted to continue the game of me evicting her so she could get more emergency rent funds. I said no, I'm just non renewing (which is an option that has been wiped out if you have "Good Cause" laws).

What Steve said.

Sean could you add the interest as well?

Thank you all for such great information!

and since there are a lot of knowledgeable people here and esp from Ma, may I ask another question? Can I raise the rent,..she owes 35,000 and says now that she knows that she might have to be evicted for that,..so she paid one payment this month telling my handy man that she is going to "start" paying rent now (only the third payment since June of 2020),.

Yes Raft did pay an unbelievable 30 K afew years ago,..but the tenant has not paid since, she is working with a good job.

but would like to bill for the same unit above her unit, as size, and condition which is 330 more.As we raised that rent over this time.

So I just heard from my lawyer that he is appealing the verdict giving her possession but the judge says she has to pay the arrears, so if we have to, we can pursue that to possibility get her out.

What miffs me also is that this took almost 3 months to deliver this verdict, despite we had the other 3 tenants testify they were seriously thinking about moving because of her,and a number of her violations, pets, smoking etc... I found out numerous times during those months this female went to the court magistrate to litterly weep saying she has no place to go and at least 6x to my knowledge maybe more to ask the magistrate to convey that to the judge. I didn't think that was allowed one a verdict was given . I also found out the judge's prior job was a tenants rights lawyer.

So my question is,..how long do I (if allowed) do I have to give her notice of when to expect the rent raise.?

My lawyer was the one suggested by the LL's asociation and considered the best in the area but very slow in answering questions.

Again thank you all.

That is what I meant by over 4 years.

Ok,easy to say, so how much are you willing to pay? this one has 4 floors 3 really nice units of 2,600 sq feet and 2 smaller units of about 1300. all in great shape,..

I have 8 other multis all in great shape,in good locations, make me an offer.

30k?! Wow, that is a lot even for MA standards. The IRS would love to see that on an 1099C…oh boy! My advise is to wait for Steve’s response and follow it to a ‘T’.

6x6

I'm still missing what you mean by the 4 years comment,am I missing something?

Sean, the 30 k is what RAFT paid one time.. actually 32K

As of Oct 1st her arrears now will be 36,250.

70,000?

MikeK, I am not someone of enough experience to matter, nor am I in your situation. Given that, I don't really know what I would do, but I don't see someone living for free for over four years in one of my houses. I don't have that kind of patience.

6X6

Well re: those 4 years,..we tried to get them out, but they kept doing things to report to the Board of Health... now their extensive move-in list they had been commenting on everything was fine and they thought the place was beautiful. After the first month which they did pay for, they started to complain not to us, but the Board of Health. They claim that the Windows wouldn't open in our maintenance man found that they had been glued. The Board of Health wrote us up for that.

So in Massachusetts there is a law that says that you can't evict someone from the time of the complaint and for six months later as it can be considered retaliation. So just before that six month period was up, they pulled down a ceiling fan and we got wrote up for that. So another six months. Don't forget that COVID time covered some of this time also.and they chose to use that not to pay and then about every six months they were able to call the Board of Health for something that both my partner( we co own this building) was told by our lawyer not to go out there personally as her husband has mental problems and owns guns and can be very violent at times.Plus he threatened us.

So they were very hostile to either of us but not to the main handyman since they know he doesn't own the place. So another time a faucet was broken and the handyman said it looked like somebody took a hammer to it. The Board of Health doesn't care and they just say there's a problem and they write us up. And oh, and it just so happens the girl is very pretty and very flirtatious with the building inspector and he doesn't want to hear any complaints from us.

So we have paid $18,000 in legal fees to try to get them out so far, I should say her out as the husband has left not by his choice, a policeman in town told me that he did some things that were very inappropriate with his daughter And required to leave.

So they kept breaking things claiming we were not keeping up on maintenance. By the way after a lot of work, our maintenance guys removed the glue from the Windows and making them operable, the maintenance men went back a year later as she complained that the windows again were not working and found that most of them were glued again. It didn't matter to the Board of Health even though they deemed the windows OK after they were fixed before, they wrote us up again,.. only to this time to back off when we threatened a lawsuit against the town.

Thank you, MikeK.

Now, I am curious. How did these tenants get in there in the first place?

If I understand correctly, they paid only the first month and from that point on did not pay. What was missed during the screening process?

Would you have been better off to let the BOH condemn the unit and call it uninhabitable and let them make the tenant leave?

In Ma you can't let the BOH just condemn the unit to a get rid of that tenant,.,.no you can't push them out either and just pay a fine,.The court can charge the owner 500 day for tiring that. and not fixing the reason for the violation.

How did they get in?,.Actually they had good credit and a stellar endorsement from the previous LL and they of course claimed to live with their parents before that,.a scan did show that,.and the last LL indeed claimed she WAS selling it and my office worker felt sorry for them that they were needing to live somewhere soon,..she fell for their sob story,and with that great endorsement,...

Both myself and my partner have extremely busy full time jobs and left it up to one of my office women to handle the rental,in the past she has done a very good job in learning how to vet someone,.

So,.they also had good income via pay stubs etc.

Fast forward,..when they were shown to be a nightmare I called the previous LL again,..and I guess she forgot somehow that she gave them such a good endorsement and in fact now said they were the worst tenants she ever had in almost 2 decades.,.and was so stressed from them that as soon as they left she took a long vacation,..and also put it up for sale and sold it for much less than she should have.(I thought yea,sure, how come you couldn't have been honest a year earlier but she obviously wanted to get rid of them)

Thank you, MikeK.

That pretty much answers that. A lesson for all of us.

Have you considered doing in home visits to where they currently live, when screening someone?

Well Ken how many building do you have? Ever make a mistake? My office lady has vetted probably about a 100 potential tenant in 3 states with pretty good results over the years I own most of our properties my self with a few with my partner. I make a pretty good living at my profession but its true more and more I have to turn over the RE side to some help.

The RE side has a pretty good positive cash flow and all the buildings have been paid off years ago .

I don't do any maintenance myself anymore. I can hire out as its not worth my time to do it myself. This situation is very unusual. So what would YOU have done to further vet this person?

Ken, any chance you will be in Indiana in a week or so?

I feel that the ex-owners are going to be a PITA at the new place I am buying.

Some people with plenty of income and good credit are not good tenants.

Current landlord reference is invaluable. Most will tell you if the tenant is bad. However, because a few landlords will lie to get rid of a tenant, I always check with the prior landlord, also. My applicants must have two good landlord references.

I do not accept landlord references from parents or relatives or hotels or campgrounds. The parents will only say good things, no matter what the tenant is like, and the hotels and campgrounds do not know what they are like as tenants.

well Ken, again this is pretty unusual, besides the number of dealing with maybe 50 or more applicants by our office lady, we have had no real problems. Sometime after she was duped by the fact we had such a good recommendation by former landlord and the tenants were young and seemed that it was true that they had only lived at home with parents, she allowed and them in after getting credit reports, bank statements, check stubs, calling at least one of the employer's for reference,. had them fill out a lengthy statement of condition and signing the rental contract,she allowed them occupancy..

So soon after the occupancy and seeing trouble we employed one of the two landlord-tenant specialists lawyers in the area suggested by the local landlords Association,and followed his advice.

We felt this first lawyer wasn't prepared and the female tenant lied through her teeth at mediation in front of a former tenant's right lawyer which allowed her to stay. After that, we hired the other lawyer who is considered to be the best in the area. But from another post you can see the manipulations that this woman went through. We also followed his advice,as you cannot do many things that some LL's can do in their state. ( BTW I also have 5 multis in NYS , bad for LL's, but not as bad as MA,)

Based on this I'm not sure we could have done much more. Now we can't turn off electricity or, we cannot allow the Board of Health to condemn her unit to get rid of her etc. She is not open for accepting cash for keys,.we are Stuck in the middle of a manipulative lying tenant who orchestrates damages and then complains to the Board of Health, and dealing with the judge who even in this 10 friendly state is even more tenant friendly.

With All of this building still as a positive cash flow of over $10,000 year. Not a lot, but I can remember not that many years ago having to do a lot of grunt work for that amount of money. With maintenance men, and office help, we don't have to do very much active management. Hopefully this woman will be out and we will have more income and less outgo as far as dealing with her.

MikeK, I am so sorry these nightmare people are in one of your homes.

Ken, The bank foreclosed and the Sherriff's sale went thru before I knew anything about the place.